If what goes on here bothers you, better hope your guy is not the nominee

[DuctapeFatwa]

This is a repost. The original was archived while people were still discussing it. There were no flame wars, panty raids, or cream-pie throwing in the thread. I am reposting it so people who want to can keep discussing it. This seems like a good moment to repost it. If there were a way to unarchive the original I would have just kicked it.

Disclaimer: I do not support any of the candidates.

It doesn't matter which one you like, whoever wins the nomination will be running against a popular figurehead in the middle of what the voting class considers a "war on terror."

That very popular figurehead is a walking, talking (sort of) testament to just how much the US regime respects the election process.

it doesn't matter who your guy is, what he does or says, or has done, once there is an official Democratic nominee, he might as well go ahead and change his name to Max Cleland. And that's the best case kittens and bunnies scenario.

If you are upset by the little pricks and slaps that you see here, if your candidate is upset by his opponents' remarks in the Debate Shows, then it will be better for both of you, and your respective therapists, to get out now.

Here, the site administrators gave you a chance to choose: free speech or not.

You overwhelmingly rejected free speech.

In the real world, neither you nor your candidate will have the comfort of a byzantine maze of overlapping and obfuscated rules nor an on-call squadron of speech police to protect you - or your candidate - from so totally beyond the planet of the absolute worst freepershopped candidate's kids dressed like hitler with bosoms 1974 smoking gun dirty note written by candidate to Heather Locklear on a pack of JOB banana papers subscribtion to WSWS changed his mind about school uniforms smokes Kools ate beef wore fur talked back to his daddy loves pedicures you can imagine - that's what the bush regime has waiting for your guy.

You see the stuff on Free Republic, but do you realize how much closer that is to mainstream voters than here?

Go try the yahoo boards. Do some IRC. Undernet #politics is pretty popular. Why do you think FoxNews does so well in the ratings? It's not because they love to hate em.

Politics is a dirty business at best. And the current situation can hardly be called the best. There is no guarantee that the final tally of votes decreed will bear any relation to the number of votes cast.

No matter who your candidate is, he does not have at his disposal the propaganda resources that the bush regime does.

Once nominated, your guy's target audience is no longer you, if it ever was. Once nominated your guy is talking to people who believe Saddam Hussein flew a plane into the World Trade Center.

And he will have to make himself heard over a regime machine that will say he was the co-pilot.

[Hep]

1. Theone difference I see

is at least WRT the right wing I know who my enemy is and I know why they oppose me.

I don't like what's going on here. Because it's D's calling me an idiot. Calling me brainwashed.

I've spent three years preparing for what the RW is going to do to my team. I never expected the same behavior from my side of the idealogical fence.

[lastliberalintexas]

3. I agree

I wouldn't have a problem with the repubs saying any of this stuff about our candidates- in fact, I *expect* it from them. But from my fellow Dems? Et tu Brute? :-)

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. I am tempted to do a semi-repost of the "politics is not about ideology"

post, but on reflection, I am not sure that matters so much.

There are people who do believe it is about ideology, and they believe that their candidate's position on issue X is really really different than that of Candidate X, and that at least one of them is really really different from the status quo.

So although ideology is not semantics, or copywriting skill, and politics is not ideology, if someone believes that it is, what is the difference as far as their reality is concerned?

So although you may feel that the person should be on your side of the ideological fence, and I may feel like both of you are skipping blindly down a cardboard cutout of a primrose path, the person who admires your candidate's opponent believes that his candidate is da bomb, and frequently, that is the alpha and omega of their ideology, such as it is.

Also, I think that there are some very real ideological debates going on as people ask questions about where the Democratic party is, and where it is going. How much of an ideological divide is there really between Republicans and Democrats? Should there be more? Less?

How much is it about giving people a choice or giving them the illusion of a choice?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

15. It sounds like you are focusing too much on what people say about you

and not enough on what they say about your candidate.

"Because it's D's calling me an idiot. Calling me brainwashed."


That stuff's just totally irrelevant and against DU rules anyway. If you are getting all upset about what people say about you instead of answering the real, substantial, well-documented points they raise about your candidate, you are doing your candidate, and the process, a disservice.

[library_max]

2. I think you're missing the point.

This is also a repost from the archived thread.

A lot of the objection to "what goes on here" is based not on delicate feelings that have been wounded but on a profound sense that what we are doing is counterproductive. It's one thing to suffer the slings and arrows of the opposing party - that's expected. It's another thing to support the kind of circular firing squad that Democrats, particularly ideological ones, seem to have perfected.

I'm not suggesting that everybody drop their preferred candidate and snap into formation behind the front-runner. I'm not sure I'm prepared to do that myself. But what we could and should do is keep it positive, honest, and constructive. We can talk about issues and why we think our preferred candidates are the best without resorting to personal attacks, distortions, and cheap smears against the other candidates and their supporters. In doing so, we are just generating talking-points for the Republicans against whoever our nominee ends up being, and trying to piss each other off to the point where many will stay at home and sulk on Election Day (or vote Green, which is the same thing).

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. LOL I think that would not seem so bad if the Repubs were having primaries

If there were any Republicans gunning for that party's nomination, you would see the same thing.

[library_max]

6. I take it you never heard of Reagan's Commandment.

"Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican." They do a pretty good job of sticking to it, even in contested nominations.

Again, I'm not saying the candidates and their supporters shouldn't disagree, but there really is a difference between disagreeing and attacking.

[plurality]

8. nah they did a lot of it too

I saw on some anti-freep site some old threads there from the 2000 primary. Their wars were just as intense as ours. Saw Rim Job calling shrub a coked-up awol turd in a few of them, and others going off on the kool-aid drinking bauer and keyes supporters. difference is they cut off all dissent after that happened.

[bearfartinthewoods]

10. i just cannot understand this thinking

the GE will be as much about each candidate's negatives as it will be about their positives.

will we stop saying bush lied? negative campaigning
will we stop talking about his ties to mega businesses? negative campaigning

i could go on and list a dozen accusations we will hurl at bushco. so what makes you think they won't hurl back?

given that fact, how can anyone not worry about our candidates negatives? how can we not take into account their vulnerabilities when deciding who is most likely to take out bush?

given that, how do we evaluate the candidate's negatives and vulnerabilities unless we know what they are?

and how do we know what they are if only positives are allowed to be discussed?

[library_max]

14. Oh, I see.

So the five-thousandth iteration of the cool-aid reference to Dean supporters, or the seven-thousandth rehash of the IWR vote, is just good vetting, to make sure that we don't end up with a vulnerable nominee.

Obviously, I'm not buying it. First, there are respectful and constructive ways even to raise the issue of a candidate's negatives. I have no problem, for example, with the way you've raised the issue of public approval for the war in Iraq, and I don't think the new rules would present any kind of objection to it either.

Second, so much of what we see is repetition of the same old negative memes, which is not constructive even in the sense of illustrating vulnerabilities. Who doesn't know by now that Kerry voted for the IWR? Who doesn't know by now that Clark wasn't always a Democrat?

It's the endless hateful screaming match that I object to (Your candidate sucks!! No, YOUR candidate sucks!!!), not discussion of negatives and vulnerabilities per se. The thread began as a discussion of the forum rules, which I think are a constructive and appropriate attempt to keep things civil. I guess it's too late to worry about providing talking points for the Republicans, but I still consider very real the danger that we are encouraging good active Democrats to get so angry that they will not support or even vote for the eventual nominee.

[JNelson6563]

7. It's different when it comes

from your own.

Bin Laden and Dean in the same commercial? That's dirty GOP tactics. It pains me to see my fellow Dems stoop so low.

Julie

[joefree1]

9. Or Holly Joe with his "Saddam would still be in power

... if Dean had his way." Nice.

"If you have no enemies, it is a sign fortune has forgot you."
- Thomas Fuller (1608 - 1661)

[bearfartinthewoods]

11. link to the previous? thanks

[DuctapeFatwa]

13. here you go, sorry, should have been in the first post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=116030

[Upfront]

12. What Gets Me

Is Democrats attacking fellow Democrats, which is just handing victory to B###. It would not hurt me to have rethugs attack because I expect that. I remain stunned at the bitterness and hate by Democrats toward Democrats. I doubt any of the candidates will win the general election because of it. Maybe they don't care but there supporters should.